Great Rite

protruding, and her eyes bulged. Graves reportedly remarked that Abigail would die and he would be hanged for her death.

The same month as the childbirth, Graves was brought to a hearing on charges of witchcraft. No legal action was taken. Whether Abigail and her husband ever got her inheritance is not known.

FuRTHER READING:

Hall, David D, ed. Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638—1692. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991.

Great Rite In contemporary Witchcraft, a powerful, magical rite of sexual intercourse that pays homage to the male/female polarity that exists in all things in the universe. The Great Rite expresses the physical, mental, spiritual and astral union between man and woman, and the union of the Goddess and God.

The Great Rite is the hieros gamos, the Sacred Marriage or Holy Matrimony, which is union with a deity or godhead. It dates to the Neolithic era. Ancient kings required the hieros gamos, a union with a priestess representing the Goddess, in order to rule. The hieros gamos also was part of ancient women's mysteries, in which women sacrificed control of their feminine power to the Goddess and were renewed by her. It was part of the Mysteries of Isis and reportedly was part of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The Great Rite represents the inner marriage of the soul and spirit, Ego and Self. As an initiation, it represents the gateway to individuation, or becoming whole. It also releases great power, which may be directed for magical purposes; it is one of the Eightfold Paths to magical power in the Craft.

Depending on the tradition, the Great Rite is performed within a MAGIC CIRCLE at initiations (such as the third-degree initiations in the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions), seasonal festivals (see WHEEL of THE Year) and HANDFAsTINGs. The high priest and high priestess may perform the Great Rite together. As part of an initiation, the rite is done between initiate and high priest or high priestess. It is done either "in token," that is, symbolically with ritual tools (such as an athame inserted into a chalice), or "in true," as a sexual act. If done in true, the participating couple usually are intimate partners. An outer portion of the rite is done with the coven, and the sexual portion is done privately.

Gerald B. Gardner had the Great Rite performed with the coven watching. Gardner also favored ritual scourging as part of the rite, a practice which has fallen out of favor.

Green Man A pagan deity of the woodlands, usually represented as a horned man peering out from a mask of foliage, usually the sacred oak. The Green Man, also called "Green Jack," "Jack-in-the-Green" and "Green George," represents the spirits of the trees, plants and foliage. He is attributed with the powers of making rain and fostering the livestock with lush meadows. He appears often in medieval art, including carved church decorations.

In spring Pagan rites, Green George, as he is usually called then, is represented by a young man clad from head to foot in greenery, who leads the festival procession. In some festivals, Green George, or an effigy of him, is dunked into a river or pond in order to ensure enough rain to make the fields and meadows green.

As the woodlands deity, the Green Man shares an association with the forest-dwelling FAIRIEs (green is the fairy color). In some locations in the British Isles, the fairies are called "Greenies" and "Greencoaties." "The Green Children" is a myth of two fairy children, a brother and a sister, whose skin is green, and who claim to be of a race with green skin.

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